....a grown man "seduced by a minor" give me a break. As an adult it is your responsibility to know who your sleeping with and I believe age should be one of the things you would check out.
Sheila, I need to clarify my statement a little further, it seems. I am not talking about prepubescent children here. Anyone who deliberately engages in sexual relations with a young child is a psychopath, plain and simple. They need to be punished accordingly.
What I was talking about are post-pubescent teenagers. Some have developed physical attributes (breasts for females, facial hair for males) earlier than others, giving themselves the appearance that they are older than their actual age. Unfortunately, some of these teens misrepresent themselves as being older than they actually are in order to engage in sex relations with someone who probably would say "no" if they knew they were a minor. In most major cities, teenaged girls (often runaways from bad family situations) dress themselves as adults and enter the world of prostitution in order to live. Teenaged boys in similar circumstances often turn to hustling. Others still at home, not engaged in prostitution, often obtain fake identification (not that hard to get, by the way) and deliberately lie about their age. Those fake IDs are not used just for purchasing alcohol.
While men who engage in relations with these pseudo-adult post-pubescent minors should receive a certain degree of punishment, the youth should not always be percieved as an "innocent victim", either. In many cases, they are not. Want proof? Go to virtually any chat room or message board for teens on the internet and see how many of them are not talking vividly and flirtatiously about sex. You hear about these chat rooms frequently in the news. If these teens can do it with their peers, they can surely manipulate and misrepresent themselves as adults. I know of no one who asks for identification before engaging in sexual relations. The part these youths play in the seduction of adults should be thoroughly investigated. IMHO, the parents of the youthful seductors and seductresses should also be held accountable in some cases.
Without looking at the individual circumstances behind each crime, giving due punishment only to the adult while granting automatic immunity to the youth will only serve to perpetuate a "green light" to the youths that it is OK for them to continue misrepresenting themselves, seducing adults, and having the option to turn on the adult and turn them in if their demands are not satisfied. Sexual blackmail, IMHO, is as heinous a crime as rape or pedophilia, and should be treated as such.
